Former astronaut on future of space program

TALLAHASSEE - Former astronaut Norm Thagard, a Florida native who lives in Tallahassee, says he hopes America continues to push forward with its space program because society benefits so much from the technological advances coming out of the research.

He says the United States needs programs that push the limit because without them, society falls short of what it's capable of achieving. He says the space program has been a major contributor to America's greatness and the country should not turn away from the things that made it great.

Here are some quotes from an interview he did today:

"To do away with it would be penny wise and pound foolish. A lot of technological development comes out of that huge R-&-D program and unless you're tasked to do something that's really tough, you don't solve the tough problems."

"The fact is, we need programs that push the limit. Without them, we don't do nearly what we could do. I don't think it's healthy for a society to turn in on itself and totally go away from the things that made it great and clearly that space program was a huge contributor to American greatness."

Asked if he thinks humans will travel to other worlds, Thagard says one of two things will happen. He says mankind will either fulfill its potential and go to Mars, or the human race will cease to exist.

"I think that humans are bound to do one of two things. They're either going to go to Mars because it is the history of humans to do things of which they're capable and we're perfectly capable technologically with the solving of the few problems to send folks to Mars. Or we'll cease to exist as a species. But we're going to do one of those two things."

"I'm optimistic about the future of humans in space. I hope America will play a major role in that. It's sometimes a little hard to be optimistic about our role given that we seem to be distracted by so many things and my belief is a country is either advancing or going backwards. It's not going to stay still for very long."